


Action, Intention, Evolution

by cookingwithcyanide



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, all my fic is either relatively niche moderately kinky stuff or just philosophical Discussion, and my own dignity, and of forgiveness and what makes an apology actually matter, but it fits in wilsons mouth as well as mine, but that doesnt mean you wont be beholden to try, change is a verb, i almost references an ayn rand work again but restrained myself out of respect for the reader, of action and intention, or both!, progress is weird when youre not under the constraints of linear time, so get fuckin doing hot stuff, this is really just me finally articulating something a month late, this one's just the philosophy though, were a little short on the forgiveness and the apology doesnt matter but maybe it will in a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookingwithcyanide/pseuds/cookingwithcyanide
Summary: “Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to feel bad and think about what you’ve done or whatever, but I don’t have the energy to deal with your ‘sick sorry son of a bitch’ thing right now.”“What?! I’m trying to apologize to you- show some remorse for what I’ve done to you!”“Your grief doesn’t do shit for me, Carter. Get off your ass and make yourself useful, unless you want to wallow there until the Grue gets you. I have things to do.”
Relationships: Maxwell/Wilson (Don't Starve)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Action, Intention, Evolution

**Author's Note:**

> The conversation this stems from happened a few weeks ago, but I only just processed in a meaningful way how I feel about it now. This is one of those rare fics that I write nearly head to tail in one burst, with a pen in one of the little notebooks I keep all about me for expressly this reason, and transcribe into a document later with minimal edits. Came to me while I was knitting- it’s a good thing to do, when you’d like to think but can’t quite get there without putting your hands to work.
> 
> I've done more than my fair share of study and debate in philosophy, I imagine, and one of those areas that I'm still trying to pick to pieces is the blend of action and intent, and which one matters where and when and how much. Sometimes though, you don't care what a person what intending, because what happened is what happened and that's what HAPPENED and what you're left with; what's real. With someone as generally obfuscating and convoluted as Maxwell, it's an ordeal to pick into all the intent and rationalizations given when what's done is already what was done. There's always the future, but the past is the past and what's presently at hand is dealing with the effects of that.
> 
> Maybe I'm just a hardass. I've never had enough empathy to go around, really, and my compassion gets stretched thin where I'm stretched thin myself.

It has been hardly more than a month of cooperation on tenterhooks when Maxwell finally works up the courage to clear his throat. “Higgsbury… I, ah. I want to apologize to you. For all that I did to you while on the Throne, and for coercing you here. Now that I’ve spent some time free of Their direct influence I am…  _ sickened _ by some of what I’ve done.  _ Ahem _ . I feel that you have the right to know that it’s been eating at me.”

The late autumn breeze cools the uncomfortable sweat on the back of his neck. He watches Wilson freeze before him, let his pack slip to the ground, and whirl around. The expression on his face - moments before they’d been at peace, going to collect lumber and stone for winter, working well together enjoying the last of the good weather - skids in short order from incredulity to confusion before it finally twists up into sneering anger.

“Oh, that’s rich. You feel I have the right? To know that the reprehensible things you chose to do, that you  _ enjoyed _ doing by all counts, make you feel bad in retrospect? Thanks so much for your generous consideration.” 

“Would you rather go on believing I haven’t a care in the world for the harm I inflicted upon you? I thought you would appreciate knowing that my actions weigh on me- they tear me apart! I did such horrible things to you, I-” He cuts himself off before he can spiral; he cuts himself off at Higgsbury’s sharp, humorless bark of laughter.

“Look, I  _ appreciate _ that you’re trying to feel bad and think about what you’ve done or whatever, but I don’t have the energy to deal with your ‘sick sorry son of a bitch’ thing right now.”

“What?! I’m trying to apologize to you- show some remorse for what I’ve done to you!”

“Your grief doesn’t do shit for me, Carter. Get off your ass and make yourself useful, unless you want to wallow there until the Grue gets you. I have things to do.”

He snatches his pack back up and storms into the woods, not waiting for Maxwell to sullenly follow.

* * *

Later, around the fire, Maxwell coughs again. Wilson looks up from the flint axeblade he’s sharpening with a raised eyebrow and very little patience. Maxwell starts again, struggling through his discomfort in the name of diplomacy. “I’m sorry for earlier. I hadn’t intended to start an argument.”

Wilson snorts and sets his work down beside him, leaning back to regard Maxwell’s tense form with crossed arms. “Is that the flavor of the day then? Empty sorrow because things inconvenience you now? Perpetuating the actions you’re apologizing for as you apologize?”

“If that’s what you want to think about it, sure! Whatever puts it through your thick head. I’ll just be better then, Christ.” Fuck diplomacy, then. If Higgsbury is going to continuously raise his hackles when Maxwell is  _ attempting _ to set them on better footing so they can cooperate better, and subsequently perhaps even survive better, then so be it. Maxwell is ready to retire to his tent in a flurry of grumbles since their conversation here so  _ clearly _ wouldn't be going anywhere productive, but the man across the fire is staring at him in open mouthed consternation.

“What the hell is that supposed to-? That doesn’t fucking  _ mean anything! _ Either take actual steps to change or keep stewing away in your self flagellation and worthless apologies on your own time. I don’t want whatever piteous fool act you’re trying to give me. You feel bad, do something about it.”

“Well, what would you have me do?!”

“I don’t give a fuck. Make better choices of your own accord or keep being a self-serving thoughtless bastard, but whatever you do, don’t make it my damn problem. You got yourself into your own mess and it’s not my job to get you out of it.”

Maxwell’s anger persists full-throttle until all at once it putters to a halt at a glaring wall in his logic. “... You got me off the throne.”

Higgsbury does not soften; he has always been utterly resolute in his own morals, comparatively unconventional though they may be at times. “That was inhumane. No person should be made to suffer that, even the most  _ insufferable.” _

“I. Still, thank you. It was an undertaking you went through, and for me.” Maxwell swallows around the sudden thickness in his throat. Too many things are running to his mind, too fast to hold onto, and none of them paint him in any sort of light he likes.

“Make it up to me. You make me regret it at least once a day, with whatever schtick you decide to put up.”

There is nothing Maxwell can fathom to respond. It’s just the truth, isn’t it? And it’s only fair. Higgsbury pushes onwards, sighing heavily. He runs a tired hand over his face.

“I’d do it again, though. I despise you, and I’ll never forget nor forgive what you did, but you’re still a person. You do deserve the  _ barest _ humanity.”

“I don’t even know if I’m really human anymore,” Maxwell can barely whisper it over the crackle of the fire, the most insidious and pressing of his new insecurities brought suddenly to light for Higgsbury to lay his curt judgement upon. He barely even gives it pause, like it doesn’t even matter - like he already knows the answer and it doesn’t change his perception from where it already stands.

“Neither do I. Repress it or get used to it or get over it. You’re not gonna get clean by sitting in your own stink. What’s done is done. What’s changed is changed, and broken things are never mended to what they were before. Either keep moving or die hanged on your dreams of what once was or what could have been or whatever the hell you want to cry about. None of that exists. Do something real and maybe you’ll  _ ‘be better’ _ then. That’s your problem to deal with. I’m going to bed.”

With that, he gathers up himself and his axe, abruptly turns on his heel, and stalks back to his tent. Maxwell is left staring at the fire, stock still and turning words over and over in his mind in the dead, suffocating silence of the night he made.

“... Goodnight, Higgsbury.”


End file.
